Imps News

Skubala: “We saw them play Charlton; Charlton were really good against them.”

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Image for Skubala: “We saw them play Charlton; Charlton were really good against them.”

Ahead of the clash with league leaders Birmingham City, Michael Skubala revealed he has plans to contend with a very tough opponent.

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Jovon Makama: The young strikers contract is just reward for the player personally and great for the club in that they have been able to tie down a new contract. Jovon’s future is bright, MS noting he has a long way and hard work to be done in order to progress to the next step with Lincoln or somebody else.

“Over the last few months with me he’s grown and grown. He’s becoming a real good threat for us on that top line”.

Jovon is now showing what a good consistent professional he is.

FA Cup Tie at Chesham United: MS loves the FA Cup as a competition and the reality of there being no easy games is the beauty of it. Football is a low-scoring game, so in a one-off match, anything can happen. The fixture will be treated like any other game with it being up to the Imps to ensure that they are good on the day to get through to the next round.

Injury Update: MS indicated that there were a number of injuries being borne by the squad, but overall it was a decent picture. The minuses came in the form of Adam Jackson who picked something up in Grimsby and will be subject to a late fitness test; possibly requiring a scan in due course. It was worse news for Tom Bayliss who has a knee ligament injury and will be out for several months. A future scan will indicate whether he needs an operation.

MS was quite relaxed about the impact of the Tom Bayliss injury, maintaining the squad has good variation available – Moylan, McKiernan, Hamilton, Hackett- Fairchild, Jefferies (notwithstanding Erhahon and McGrandles).

“We’ve got options which again comes back down to our strategy of having the depth. We knew we might start to hit injuries”, notably during phases of the season where there are Saturday/Tuesday matches, MS remarked.

Encouragingly, Ethan Hamilton, Reeco Hackett-Fairchild and Ben House are all available and in contention. Ben House is the club’s most experienced striker in the absence of Tyler Walker. He does so much for the side on and off the ball, looking a real threat prior to his concussion injury.

Birmingham City: Of course, Birmingham are a good side with impressive players having spent a lot of money but that isn’t everything. The manager still has to put a team together within that and coach them well, which is a really tough job when there are high expectations.

The Blues play really good football and are probably the best in the league at playing a three-box-three, or three-two-five system and how their players rotate within that.

We don’t want to be passive, we’re at home. We want to try and take the game to them. We might have to think a little bit differently about what we do on the day but we saw them play Charlton; Charlton were really good against them”.

Admittedly the Imps will need to be good to achieve the three points but it follows Birmingham likewise if they want to emerge victorious.

Lincoln have plans, ways of dealing with the Birmingham threat, especially off the ball. It will require aggression and getting after ‘them’ when out of possession, which can be easier said than executed on the pitch. However MS was undeterred, “We’ll definitely have a structure and a set-up to try and deal with them”.

On a final note, MS mentioned that he and a number of other club staff were running on behalf of the charity PROSTATE UNITED and asked if anybody could help a good cause.

Writer: hulloutpost

Thank you to Chris Vaughan and Lincoln City Football Club for the photograph!

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